It very was a very big night for both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, as the two candidates with the lowest overall favorability ratings in their respective parties nonetheless reportedly swept up most of the votes in almost all of the 5 big states up for grabs during yesterday's 'Super Duper Tuesday' primary elections.

On today's BradCast, we review all of the results, still-remaining questions about several of them (some likely never answerable due to the close margins and 100% percent unverifiable e-voting systems that bit both Rs and Ds in Missouri), as well as inexcusable problems (such as outrageous paper ballot shortages in Illinois, photo ID voting restrictions in North Carolina, a gun in an Ohio polling place, and failed electronic pollbooks and purged voting rolls in Florida) that many voters faced while simply trying to cast a vote at all in a number of states.

While your candidate may or may not have been adversely affected yesterday, I'd urge you to pay close attention to today's program before the candidate (or party) you may favor ends up paying the price for the often-shameful system of voting we still have in this country. If not, by the time you decide to give a damn, it may very well be too late to do anything about it. (Did I mention the never-knowable intent of the voters on both the D and R side yesterday in Missouri?)

Also today: Obama's names his SCOTUS nominee, listener calls on all of the above, and much more, including Desi Doyen with our latest Green News Report...

While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!

While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!

The largest media market in the world is about to lose its only non-Rightwing commercial talk radio station. Los Angeles' KTLK 1150am will be flipped to a far Rightwing station featuring hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and other rightwing talkers. "The changes are set to take effect for the first broadcast of 2014," according to the Los Angeles Times this afternoon.

KTLK is owned by Clear Channel Communications, Inc., the nation's largest owner of radio stations. Clear Channel is now owned by Mitt Romney's Bain Capital LLC. The talkers mentioned above who will be taking over the previously-progressive station are also syndicated by Clear Channel-owned Premiere Networks, the largest radio syndicator in the nation. The BRAD BLOG has long argued that the outsized control of our public airwaves enjoyed by Clear Channel/Premiere and a handful of other conglomerates --- including their ability to leverage our public airwaves (licensed from we, the people, in exchange only for their promise to serve the public interest) to distribute their own syndicator's shows --- is a likely violation of U.S. v. Paramount, the 1948 anti-trust Supreme Court decision which found that the major movie studios could not also control the means of distribution by owning the nation's largest theater chains at the same time.

As if ending progressive talk radio in L.A. isn't bad enough, Clear Channel will now also reportedly be flipping its formerly progressive San Francisco talk station KNEW 960am (a move which they had threatened and then partially changed their mind about flipping in late 2011), over to a completely Right-leaning station as well, says the Times. That will leave San Francisco, arguably the most progressive city in the nation, without any commercial progressive talk radio outlet at all. But, as in L.A., listeners will still have many different Right-leaning talks outlets on our public airwaves to choose from, several of them owned by the same major corporation.

In Los Angeles, Clear Channel also owns KFI 640am, the number one station in the market. That station currently runs Limbaugh, along with a host of other Right-leaning local talk shows. KTLK, had once described itself as "Progressive Talk", before changing it's tag line to "L.A.'s Voice" earlier this year. They had already gutted of most of the station's progressive-leaning talk shows over the past several years. The station will now be re-dubbed "The Patriot". The Times reports that "Clear Channel is hoping to pump up [KTLK] as an outlet exclusively dedicated to right-leaning chatter"...

Ruskin's report is chilling and the interview is disturbing. But the second half of the show is (largely) much less troubling! We update a lot of the stories we've been covering of late on The BradCast, most of them with good news updates!

So, curl on up to the holiday radio hearth and give it a listen...and all of my best to you and yours for Thanksgiving! (Or, as we call it around here since Chanukah falls on the same day this year: Thanksalatke!)

Clear Channel's Premiere Networks has reversed course. After previously announcing they would end their relationship with her at the end of 2013, the nation's largest radio syndicator has decided to keep progressive radio talker Randi Rhodes on air into next year after all.

According to an email announcement with the subject line "Randi Rhodes Show Continues!", as sent to radio station affiliates that carry Rhodes this morning, Premiere has apologized for their previous announcement earlier this week. That announcement, first reported on Wednesday by Politico, indicated that they would not be renewing Rhodes' contract as of year's end.

"In a happy turn of events, we are pleased to announce that Premiere Networks will continue to produce and distribute The Randi Rhodes Show," reads the new email sent Friday morning by Premiere's Peter Tripi, Senior Vice President of Affiliate Relations.

"In an industry of constant change, it's a pleasure to provide good news about a talk talent we think so highly of," the email continues, before concluding with an apology. "We apologize for any inconvenience the previous announcement caused, but look forward to a very successful 2014 with The Randi Rhodes Show."

Phone calls to Tripi and another Premiere executive, seeking an explanation for the quick turnabout, were not immediately returned. The BRAD BLOG was first tipped off to Premiere's decision to keep Rhodes on the air late Thursday, by a station owner who had received a call from Premiere's Director of Affiliate Marketing, Kurt Kretzschmar...

Premiere Networks on Wednesday announced it is dropping liberal talker Randi Rhodes' radio show at the end of the year, the syndicator confirmed to POLITICO.

Rhodes, whose nationally syndicated show airs Monday through Friday from 3-6 p.m., had suggested to her listeners since October that her days on radio were "totally numbered." Premiere said today it will no longer carry her show after the year ends.

"Premiere Networks will no longer produce and distribute The Randi Rhodes Show after Tuesday, December 31, 2013," Premiere's public relations director Rachel Nelson told POLITICO in an email.
...
While Wednesday's confirmation from Premiere is the first official news about the end of Rhodes' contract, the liberal talker had alluded to listeners in October that "my ability to talk to you is going away."

"The only way you'll be able to find me in a little while is if you have my personal phone number," she said on her Oct. 18 show.

Rhodes' regular guest host Nicole Sandler will fill in for Rhodes from Dec. 16-31, Sandler told POLITICO, making Rhodes' likely last day on air this year Dec. 13.

Clear Channel owns some 850 AM and FM stations across the country. They are allowed to operate them via virtually free public licenses to broadcast over our public airwaves, as granted to them by the FCC in exchange, largely, for little more than their agreement to "operate in the public interest". You're welcome.

They also control what will be played over those stations via their syndication arm Premiere, in what appears to me at least, as I have argued over the years, to be a violation of United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., the 1948 Supreme Court antitrust ruling that ended monopolies by movie studios which controlled both theater ownership and the products which were displayed in them.

Though they are axing the Randi Rhodes program, I suspect they will continue syndicating and broadcasting their other shows across the nation's public airwaves in 2014, as hosted in the public's interest by folks like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. Tens of millions will continue to listen to each of them --- for free, over our public airwaves --- on their way to and from work each day. Finding non-Rightwing voices, for free, over our public airwaves will become even more difficult than it already is and completely impossible for the vast majority of Americans.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I have guest-hosted The Randi Rhodes show in the past, and have been a frequent guest over the years, with both her and her regular guest-host, my friend Nicole Sandler.

* * *

UPDATE 11/15/2013: In a suprising about-face, Premiere Networks has now decided to keep Rhodes on air into 2014, after all! Full details now here...

Back in 2004, I listened to Al Franken on Air America. For all of ten minutes.

Nine years ago, I was a Republican having second thoughts about giving George W. Bush a second term. Between the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the over-the-top demagoguery of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's marriage-equality ruling, I found the idea of voting for Bush again distasteful.

So I decided to give Franken, the franchise player of the then recently launched Air America radio network, a chance; maybe he could convince me to vote for John Kerry. However, after ten minutes of listening to Franken and co-host Katherine Lanpher, I decided that I wasn't really the target audience. I went back to listening to Rush Limbaugh, and --- God help me --- I ended up voting for Bush again.

Looking back, I realize that I was taught to hate Franken --- and anything that wasn't right-wing radio. It's a lesson I never should have learned...

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Another hurdle cleared for the Keystone XL pipeline; Obama names new environmental cabinet nominees; New York Times kills its Green blog; PLUS: Score one for endangered polar bears ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

[UPDATE: As of 6:00pm PT, the KPOJ website has now flipped to "Fox Sports AM 620 Portland".]

This is horrible. Tonight, without warning, Clear Channel Communications-owned 620 AM KPOJ in Portland, Oregon, one of the most progressive cities in one of the nation's most progressive states, has flipped from its years-long progressive news and talk format over to Fox Sports as of 5:30pm local time.

KPOJ was the only commercial progressive talk radio station in Portland. The city will still have several other Rightwing talk radio stations, including one owned by Clear Channel, and they already have two sports stations, but the Bain Capital-owned media conglomerate is now killing yet another progressive voice from our publicly-owned airwaves.

The BRAD BLOG can now confirm that KPOJ has flipped its programming format and website to Fox Sports as of 6:00pm PT tonight.

When one company owns "competing" talk radio stations in the same town, and gets to decide which one enjoys a stronger signal and which one receives promotional dollars (and which one doesn't), "competition" in the market place is a mirage. It's the equivalent of a Coca-Cola distributor owning the sole rights to distribute both Coke and Pepsi in the same town. Which one do you think is going to sell better there? That's precisely what talk radio is like in almost every major market in the country now. One company, usually Clear Channel, generally owns both the "Right" and "Left" talk stations. (In Portland, Clear Channel owns Rightwing talk outlet KEX as well as KPOJ.) Promoting one station would likely decrease listeners and ratings --- and, thus, ad dollars --- for the other. Thus, there is no "free market" competition in talk radio.

This is hardly the first time that Clear Channel has done the same thing, in very progressive cities, underscoring yet again that there is no real, "free market" competition in talk radio over our publicly-owned airwaves. The market place is decidedly rigged...

Progressive radio will be allowed to remain on our public AM airwaves in San Francisco, though with major schedule shake-ups, the removal of its popular progressive branding and several bizarre additions to the line-up, including far Rightwing extremists such as former Fox "News" phenom Glenn Beck in the place of what had been one of Green960's most popular morning shows.

The latest move in the strange back-and-forth saga follows on radio giant Clear Channel's announcement just over two weeks ago, that Green960 --- the only AM Progressive Talk Radio station on the dial in San Francisco, one of the nation's most progressive cities --- would be banished from the popular public airwaves and sent to the radio-ghetto of the little-known and even lesser-received HD2 band. Its progressive programming --- featuring the likes of popular lefty-ish talkers such as Stephanie Miller, Thom Hartmann, Randi Rhodes, Norman Goldman and Mike Malloy --- would be replaced (with the exception of Rhodes, who is syndicated by Clear Channel's Premiere Radio) by yet another so-called "conservative" talk station, featuring extremists such as Beck and other Fox "News" regulars.

The move by the media conglomerate, now owned by leading GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's Bain Capital, LLC, was to occur on January 3. The move would have left Rhodes as the only progressive voice on the entire AM dial in San Francisco, as of the first business day of the new Presidential Election year.

But a funny thing happened on the way to 2012 on Bay Area talk radio...

[UPDATE 12/21/11: Confirmation that Clear Channel will keep most of its progressive programming on the AM airwaves in San Francisco --- though with some bizarre changes --- is now detailed here...]

The only progressive AM talk radio station, Green960, in one of the nation's most progressive cities, San Francisco, may be allowed to stay on the public airwaves after all in the 2012 Presidential Election year!

Last week we detailed corporate radio giant Clear Channel's plans to remove Green960 (call letters KKGN) from the AM dial and send it to the radio ghetto otherwise known as "HD2," a band that requires a special receiver that very few people actually own. Adding insult to injury, the 960 spot on the AM dial would be replaced with Glenn Beck and other Rightwing talkers from Clear Channel's "conservative" talk station "Fox News Radio KNEW" which is currently on 910, but would move to the 960 frequency.

In the 910 slot, Clear Channel had planned to launch a new talk station, which would also include some Fox talkers, branded as "San Francisco's Talk 910 KKSF."

If plans move ahead as previously announced, the end result would be that --- except for progressive talker Randi Rhodes, who is syndicated by Clear Channel's syndication arm Premier Broadcasting and who would be allowed to keep her live Noon-3p PT slot on both the new KNEW 960, as well as the "HD2" schedule where the current Green960 line-up would be sent to --- there would be no progressive AM talk station on the air in San Francisco.

The entire shuffle was set to occur at the beginning of the 2012 Presidential Election year on January 3rd, a move that had raised at least a few eyebrows, as Clear Channel is now owned by the Mitt Romney-founded venture capital firm, Bain Capital LLC.

Well, now that entire plan, according to one industry website and several insider sources I've spoken to today, may be on hold and Green960's popular line-up of progressive talkers like Rhodes, Stephanie Miller, Thom Hartmann, Norman Goldman, Mike Malloy (for whom I am a regular guest-host, including on tonight's show), and others may be allowed to stay on the AM air after all!...

[UPDATE 12/16/11: Clear Channel may now be re-thinking their plans to dump Green960! Details now here...]

The only progressive AM radio talk station, Green960-KKGN, in one of the nation's most liberal cities, San Francisco, is being taken off the AM dial by radio behemoth Clear Channel Communications, Inc. --- a media conglomerate now owned by Mitt Romney's Bain Capital, LLC --- at the beginning of the 2012 Presidential election year.

Adding insult to injury for progressives in the Bay Area, the 960 slot on the dial is being replaced by Clear Channel with the likes of Glenn Beck, Fox News Radio's John Gibson and other radical Rightwing talkers, according to a press release [PDF] issued by the media giant last week, touting, in somewhat Orwellian terms, their "goal of expanding talk radio in San Francisco."

"We saw the opportunity to expand our footprint in this crucial arena as we head into an election year and a population increasingly engaged in local, state, and national events and activism," says Clear Channel's San Francisco Director of Operations Don Parker in the release.

The expansion will amount to moving Green960's current schedule of progressive talk shows off the AM band, and on to FM's HD2 radio ghetto where it will become a largely automated "robo-station," according to several radio insiders familiar with the station and Clear Channel's plans for it. The station which was formerly Green960 will have the catchy new name "FM Progressive Talk 103.7-2" at its new home, if listeners can find it.

The new Rightwing format taking its place on 960 will be known as KNEW, which is currently at 910 on the AM dial featuring a number of Fox News Radio programs. The 910 position will then be filled with a new talk format being developed by Clear Channel called "San Francisco's Talk 910 KKSF," which will also include some Fox News Radio veterans.

One bright side for progressives in San Francisco, the popular Randi Rhodes, who is syndicated nationally by Premiere (Clear Channel's syndication arm) will continue in her current live Noon to 3p PT slot on the new KNEW-960. She'll also remain in the same live slot in the progressive line up on the HD2 band, though few are likely to hear her there, as very few Americans actually own an HD radio receiver.

Rhodes tells The BRAD BLOG there could be a potential upside to the format change which will leave her progressive voice, as well as Bill Press' in the pre-dawn hours, sprinkled in among the far Rightwingers.

"I never want to see Progressive voices lose ground, but hopefully we can build on the new HD channel," Rhodes told us via email on Friday. "It does look like the beginning of the end of 'conservative format purity' has started. That's a change in the industry that I've been fighting for for a long time and I'm happy to be part of it."...

I just got off the air after doing two segments on the nationally syndicated Randi Rhodes Show, guest-hosted today by my pal Nicole Sandler of RadioOrNot.com. We discussed, as you may have guessed, the latest news (and politics) out of the continuing Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan, and the effect it may (or may not) have on the supposed "nuclear renaissance" previously scheduled here in the U.S.

In addition to summarizing some of the information from our latest detailed report on Fukushima last night, including the news we detailed about several independent scientists asserting that some 50% of the dangerous, radioactive cesium-137 emitted at Chernobyl twenty-five years ago has already leaked out of Fukushima, there are several new details breaking today. Some of them I mentioned quickly on the show. I will try to round up those, and several other new details, of course, in a new article here in a bit.

Until then, here's the audio of me and Nicole on Randi's show just now...

Following a nearly two-month absence from the airwaves, Progressive radio talker Randi Rhodes is set to return, according to an announcement this afternoon from John Scott of San Francisco's Green960 (KKGN). She will be syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks as reported in a video-taped announcement just posted on the Green960 website.

Premiere is known for their national syndication of far-right talkers such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Dr. Laura and Glenn Beck. Rhodes, known by fans as the "Goddess of Progressive Talk", had formerly been with NovaM Radio, which folded when she left, and at Air America Radio prior to that...

I'm delighted to be filling in for Randi this afternoon on The Randi Rhodes Show from 3pm-6pm ET (Noon to 3pm PT). Hope you all will join me!

If you're not lucky enough to have Randi on the air in your hometown (affiliates list here), you can stream us online via NovaMRadio.com. You can try to call in at 866-87-RANDI or leave your comments in the Open Thread right here, where Agent 99 will be your friendly host as always.

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Well that was fun! Archives now posted below, for download or online listening. Thanks to Ben Burch of White Rose Society for the commercial-free archives, which makes each "hour" just 37 fast-paced minutes long!...

HOUR 1: Lots of rants, lots of calls, guest Jeff Stein, and a focus on Republican and Fox "News" lies, and the rest of the intimidated media. Download MP3 or listen online...

HOUR 2: Lots of rants, lots of calls, guest Adam Kokesh and a focus on the reprehensible "Community Organizer" slurs from Palin and others. Download MP3 or listen online...

HOUR 3: Lots of rants, lots of calls, guest Stephen Spoonamore, clips from interview with former AL Gov. Don Siegelman on "stolen elections" and a focus on what you can do this year to reclaim your democracy. Download MP3 or listen online...